Convention Reflection

Just before Thanksgiving I attended the NCTE Annual Convention in New York City and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I was able to spend time with my friends Greg, Michael and Louann and met many other amazing people. I saw Angie and JoAnne, colleagues from my previous district and sat down for a drink with my new colleague Melissa and my new friend Carol, I mean Deb. I also got to see a little more about the inner workings of the NCTE board. Overall it was a great trip.

A few days ago Greg VanNest posted his quarterly blog entry in which he outlined some goals for himself for the upcoming year. He did the same thing last year and, I believe, completed each of his goals. After reading his blog entry, I began to think back over my time at the convention prompting this post.

One of the most interesting things about the convention was the fact that I was looking at it and experiencing it through a different lens. The biggest difference is that, technically, I’m not an English teacher. Sure, I’ll always be an English teacher, but my focus has moved to professional development and helping teachers use technology in the classroom. I’m not saying that I didn’t take away some ideas or that I didn’t enjoy being immersed in the English teacher culture again, but it was definitely a different experience.

Now for a little rant… I’ve been attending this conference for the last 4 years and I’ve seen, essentially, the same presentations for the last 4 years. I have been leaning towards the technology sessions and trying to see what others are doing with their classes, but so many are just teachers doing a web 2.0 101 presentation in which they explain what blogs, wikis and podcasts are. I know that this has a place in conferences and that there are still a lot of people that don’t know where to find these technologies. I also understand that many teachers haven’t been exposed to this yet, but I’d like to see a little more than, “This is a blog. This is a wiki.” How about some relevance as to how it works in a classroom and how someone might use a blog or wiki in their class? I think it’s time for us to move beyond the basic “click here” training and create relevance. I don’t think that it’s enough to show what you’ve done in your classroom. Why was that technology the best tool for a particular project? What kinds of objectives does this meet?

Maybe I’m just being cranky, but I see that same problem with a lot of the professional development that goes on in k-12 schools. In my position I do a lot of “click here” training to show people how to use a program. However, I’m a little dismayed that there isn’t more reasoning behind the instruction. I try to add that in, but I also have a curriculum to follow so that all who take that class have a common experience. Therein lies my struggle, yes I want to help teachers explore the technology and I want to teach them how to use it. However, there are all kinds of online tutorials that will show them where to click. Obviously there is something about face to face instruction that appeals to many. I’d just like to see those of us who facilitate development activities (whether at a conference or in a “training” session) to give participants something more than they would get from an online, how-to video. I may be over generalizing, but I think that it’s a question that needs to be asked.

5 thoughts on “Convention Reflection”

My name is Dave Powers. I work with you friend Debra who sent me this article because she knew that I would enjoy it.

I feel the exact same way that you do about both the professional development and the conferences.

It seems like the one thing holding everything back with the “no what should we do with this technology” conversations is the fact that our students are not carrying around laptop computers with wi-fi internet access during the school day. This means that the teachers have to sign up for the lab, which means everything has to be planned way in advance, which means that it probably will not happen. That is not the nature of this technology era.

While I believe that successes can occur for some teachers here and there within a building, computers and the internet have to be available 24-7-365 to really pull off wikis, blogs, and web 2.0 on a grand scale like an entire school.

I just subscribed to your blog so keep posting and I will try to comment when I can.

I am setting up a blog for the clayton school district tech committee. Currently there is only one post, but I hope the idea starts to catch on with the rest of the committee.

If you want to visit, the address is sdctechnologycommittee.edublogs.org

I just noticed that the time on you edublogs blog is off by 6 hours. It should be changes so people like me don’t look crazy for posting replies at 5:00 am . For what it is worth, it is 11:11pm right now.

This is a very interesting reflection. This should be an interesting area for research.
One question might be, how the technology could be used to challenge teacher’s belief and knowledge to support the rich learning practices.

Hi Bill. It’s Debra. Thanks for mentioning me in your blog (and for getting the name correct :)). While I read several blogs about technology, this is the very first time that I have ever posted a comment.

Did Melissa tell you about our frustrating all-day technology workshop at NCTE? It was exactly what you were describing–what’s a wiki, what’s a blog, etc. That, coupled with the fact that there were technology snafus during the technology workshop, made it even more frustrating. And this was all run (poorly run) by the technology branch of NCTE! Disappointing. Ten minutes at the end were reserved for teachers to converse about application in the classroom. I think there should be a forum by which St. Louis area teachers across school districts could talk about practical applications. I would love to know how other middle school and high school language arts teachers in the area are using technology (and then maybe even get permission from my principal to go observe). Wouldn’t that be great? Anyway, hope to see you soon.

I would like to speak a word in defense of these recurring workshops. You have been to the last 4 NCTEs, as have many of us; but the majority of teachers have not. One reason NCTE moves the convention around is to let teachers from different parts of the country attend. Many of the East Coast teachers who were able to attend the New York NCTE most likely will not be able to attend next year’s San Antonio convention, for example. So, while the subject is old to you, it is still new to many teachers. This year I am, like you, doing a great deal of professional development. When I start my blog workshop by asking, “Who here already blogs?” I might get one hand, two at most. And it’s always personal blogging. Blogs are still new classroom fodder for most teachers.

I agree with you that it would be nice to see some “Blogs 301” workshops, something more advanced for those of us have already waded into the shallow end of the pool. When are NCTE proposals due? Perhaps it’s not too late for next year’s convention. 🙂